books

I inadvertently simultaneously read two books with paraplegic or quadriplegic main characters.

- Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor: I've never read anything quite like this before and really enjoyed it. The protagonist is unapologetically independent in a way that I don't often read. (A lot of reviews talk about how unlikable she is- I found her relatable but that perhaps speaks to how unlikable I am.) She writes a massive bestseller which gives her the opportunity to get powered prosthetic legs after being in a wheelchair since she was 12. Synthetic bodies/ minds and their implications were a major theme of her book (there is a book-within-the-book) and, well, I won't spoil the rest. While marketed as sci-fi, it's primarily a family drama. Themes include ableism, the patriarchy across various cultures, family and societal expectations, fame, Hollywood whitewashing, immigrant experiences, where we stop and where the other begins, and what makes a human; but I wouldn't consider any one of those PRIMARY themes.

Binti by this author and Rosewater by Tade Thompson also tie Nigerian culture into sci-fi in a way that feels fresh to those of us used to reading a lot by white men, if you're interested in that. I listened to the audio and suspect that made me like it more.

- A Body, Undone by Christina Crosby is a memoir by a woman who suffered a devastating bike crash. My experience is that most memoirs themed around this sort of experience are often (a) not well-written and (b) have a kind of forced positivity/ inspiration porn aspect to them. This has neither of those failings and I initially found it really compelling. Unfortunately it felt like a series of disconnected essays, some mostly unrelated to her disability, and I don't think that worked as well as a more focused narrative would have in this case. Its discussions surrounding gender, worker's rights, etc. feel weirdly dated (Freud came up more than once); I was thinking it was written in the 90s but it came out in 2016. She's an English professor and several of the essays tie her experience into literary structures, which unfortunately is not my thing. So it wasn't bad but I skimmed big parts of it.